It is a messy job, but an important one.
Curbside pickup garbage service is a luxury that we often take for granted in the U.S. You simply have to drive through a suburban neighborhood in the Midwest to know when Trash day is. And while some cities only have one service, other neighborhoods get to select their pickup garbage service. In large cities with only narrow sidewalks between the front yard of a of a home and the street, it can seem as if every day is trash day.
As an important part of any city plan, residential and commercial trash services touch every home and business in the country. When weather or holidays interrupt pick up services, both home owners and business owners pay careful attention to the altered schedule.
And while trash day used to be a simple matter of taking anything and everything to the curb, today’s garbage pickup is more complicated. From authorized recycling containers to understanding how to bundle twigs and branches, today’s trash removal process requires attention to detail, especially if you want to avoid sending everything to the nation’s already crowded landfills. With regulations that vary from city to city, understanding the trash pickup service can be complicated. An increasing number of American’s, however, are wiling to take the time to make sure that they are recycling as much as possible, and making sure that their trash that does end up in the landfill makes as small of a footprint as possible.
Consider some of these statistics about the pickup garbage services that are provided in cities across America and the impact that the nation’s trash has on the environment:
- Although it costs as much as $50 a ton to send it trash to a landfill, it only costs $30 a ton to recycle.
- $11.5 billion is spent every year to clean up litter.
- As many as 20 different industries are involved in the nation’s waste management process.
- 87% of Americans have access to drop-off or curbside paper recycling programs.
- Recycling one ton of cardboard saves more than nine cubic yards of landfill space.
- The average American will throw away 600 times the amount of his or her adult weight in garbage in a lifetime.
Now is an important time in our nation. As government officials continue to battle over whether or not they are going to keep various Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations in place, it may be the efforts of individuals that really determine the future of this planet. Are you doing your part?